This Roman Catholic church is located in the 1st arrondissement, just across the street from the Louvre. Its belfry is the starting point of the axe historique.
Saint Germain was the parish church for the inhabitants of the Louvre Palace. Since September 2019, it stands in for the religious services of Notre Dame cathedral.
It is said that the church’s main bell rang in the Saint Bartholonew’s Day massacre on the night of August 23-24, 1572.
I’m sure you have no trouble spotting the Champs Élysées avenue on a map of Paris. It’s long, large, and straight. Its two end points are easily made out – the Place Charles de Gaulle-Étoile with the Arc de Triomphe on one end, the Place de la Concorde with the Tuileries Gardens and the Louvre on the other. But did you know there’s more to this straight line?
The axe historique (historical axis) or voie triomphale (triumphal way) has a long history that goes back to the 16th century when Catherine de’ Medici, widow of Henry II, had the Tuileries Palace built. The palace burned down during the Commune events, it would be placed between the two “open ends” of the Louvre.
In the 17th century, André Le Nôtre, architect of the Versailles palace gardens, used the royal residence of the Tuileries Palace as reference when he created an avenue running westwards, planning as far as today’s Rond-Point des Champs Élysées.
Today, the axe historique starts at the Louvre, or even at the bell tower of the Saint Germain l’Auxerrois church and ends at the Grande Arche de la Défense.
Let’s explore the axe historique step by step, east to west.
Montmartre today is one of the most well-known tourist sites of Paris. Its name can be traced back to Gallo-Roman times, when there was a temple dedicated to Mars, the Roman god of War, making the hill mons Martis, the hill of Mars. Or it might come from the hill of martyrs, mons Marthyrum, as Saint Denis and two fellow persecuted Christians were decapitated here.
The hill, called la Butte de Montmartre, is 130m high and constitutes the highest point of Paris.
When France’s municipalities and départements were created following a decree of November 1789, Montmartre became a municipality in the département Seine. It had difficult beginnings, as the recently constructed General Farmers tax wall cut the municipality in two.
When the city of Paris was extended from the General Farmers tax wall to the Adolphe Thiers wall, the municipality of Montmartre was incorporated in the city of Paris and became part of the 18th arrondissement. The small section outside the Thiers wall was incorporated into the municipality of Saint-Ouen.
It is in Montmartre that the revolutionary uprising of the Paris Commune began in 1871 following the lost war against Prussia., sparked by the attempt of the newly formed Third French Republic’s government to recover a large number of canons the French army had stored on the hill during the Franco-Prussian War.
During the 19th and 20th century, Montmartre attracted numerous painters, such as Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, or Modigliani.
The Sacré Cœur (Holy Heart) Basilica was built after the Franco-Prussian war and represents a national penance both for the actions of the Paris Commune and the French defeat in the war. The construction was financed entirely by private donations. Inside the basilica, you can see stones with names of donors engraved.
Say “cheese”! And now say “Camembert de Normandie”.
The Camembert de Normandie isn’t just any cheese. It’s a cheese with a history. First of all, not any camembert made in Normandy may call itself Camembert de Normandie. That’s an AOP label, Appellation d’origine protégée, or Protected Designation of Origin.
That means a Camembert de Normandie has to respect a number of criteria. First of all, obviously, is has to be made in Normandy, and even more specifically, in the départements of Calvados, Orne, Manche, or the western part of the Eure.
At least 50% of the milk has to come from Normandy cows (that’s a breed). The cows, the Normandy ones and the others, have be out in the pasture at least 6 months of the year and are allowed only specific feed when they can’t graze outside.
After that, it gets very technical in how the Camembert is produced. A crucial point to remember however is that Camembert de Normandie is made with unpasteurized milk and as such might be banned in certain countries. Also, it is generally recommended not to eat raw-milk products during pregnancy.
The finished Camembert has the shape of a cylinder of 10,5-11cm in diameter and weights a minimum of 250g. It is sold in a round wooden box made from poplar.
If you buy a Camembert in a cardboard box, or one that says only “Camembert” or even “Camembert fabriqué en Normandie”, you are not buying the real thing, the one we’re talking about.
But I promised history, right? Well, here we go:
As legend has it, the Camembert de Normandie was invented by Marie Harel in 1791, and the production was continued by her daughter, whose husband presented it to Napoléon III who gave it his seal of approval.
In better documented history, these factors advanced the spread of Camembert:
And the name? Check your map of Normandy. Marie Harel came from a tiny town in the Orne called – Camembert.
One Friday night when I was marshal at the Paris inline skate, I chatted with some tourists while guarding an intersection on the Avenue de l’Opéra. The tourists were from the U.S., and I told them that the opera building they could see at the end of the avenue was indeed the one with the phantom and the underground lake.
There are many tales about the phantom and how a real person might have inspired Gaston Laroux’ story (which became the basis for Andrew Llyod Webber’s musical), but the lake is real.
Remember the problem with the high groundwater level I mentioned in my previous post?
The building site was swampy, and water rising from below hampered the construction until finally, they encased the “lake” and used the weight of the water in the foundation of the building. The cistern remains accessible, but you can’t take a boat to row across it. However, the Paris fire-fighters use it for diving training.
But the phantom? A combination of mysterious noises during the first shows, rumors about an underground lake and the never fully explained accident in 1896, when the counterweight of the chandelier fell down and killed the concierge.
Box number five is still reserved for the phantom, as the Opéra Garnier itself confirmed in a Museum Week tweet a few years ago:
From its completion in 1875 until 1989, the Paris opera house on the Avenue de l’Opéra in the 9th arrondissement was simply known as “Opéra de Paris”. But with the completion of the Opéra Bastille on Place de la Bastille arose the need to distinguish between the two, and so the old opera house is now referred to by the name of its architect, the Opéra Garnier.
A failed assassination attempt on emperor Napoléon III when he visited the then-opera Le Peletier with his wife in January 1858 accelerated the project of a new opera house.
The site was chosen by Baron Haussmann who planned it to surround it with the characteristic Immeubles de Rapport (Revenue Houses) that you’ll remember from a previous post.
The large Avenue de l’Opéra Haussmann planned would not only create a vast perspective and showcase the new opera house, it would also allow for a swift and unencumbered escape route for the emperor from the opera to the Louvre in the event of another attack.
Still today, the Avenue de l’Opéra has no trees so as not to obstruct the view.
The chosen site however turned out to be far from ideal to accommodate a palatial building such as the opera house. Despite sinking wells and having pumps operate non-stop, the groundwater level wouldn’t go down. In the end, Garnier designed a double foundation including an enormous cistern.
At the occasion of the World Fair in 1867, still under Napoléon III, the main façade was inaugurated. An anecdote from this inauguration goes like this. The empress, shocked at the sight of the opera building, asks “What kind of style is that? That’s no style! It’s neither Greek, nor Louis XV, not even Louis XVI!” The architect, Garnier replies: “No, the time of those styles are over. This is Napoléon III style!”
The Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 not only slowed down the works but it also brought about the end of the Second Empire. The Third Republic that followed had financial difficulties and didn’t approve of everything the opera symbolized, and sent Garnier packing, but when the Le Peletier opera burned in 1873, he was called back to finish the works.
Poor Garnier – once the opera was finally completed in 1875, the Third Republic, cutting ties with the past, didn’t even invite him to the inauguration and he had to buy his own ticket!
Until 1989 and the Opéra Bastille, the Opéra Garnier was the biggest theater house in the world. Today, it mainly shows ballet by the Ballet de l’Opéra de Paris but also the occasional classic opera.
Back in 1984, the French minister for Culture created the “Historic Monuments Open Door Days” in France. The idea was picked up by the Council of Europe, which is not an institution of the European Union but an international organization that predates the European Union and has currently almost 50 member states.
European Heritage Days (the name varies from one country to another) take place in September, and open doors to monuments that are usually closed to the public, or if open, grant free entry, or offer special events and activities, including for children and youth, such as workshops, guided tours, that are not available on a regular basis.
In France, Heritage Days are called Les Journées Européennes du Patrimoine (JEP) and take place on the third weekend of September.
In this new series, Opening Doors in Paris, I’ll share some of the open doors I’ve entered over the last fifteen years.
My first French manual in school had a lesson that started with this sentence:
En France, les enfants de onze à quinze ans vont au college.
Aside from the accumulation of nasals, this sentence contains more precious information about the French school system that hasn’t changed since I started learning French:
In France, the children from age eleven to fifteen go to collège.
The collège, then, is the rough equivalent of middle school. From grade 6 on, years are counted backwards, like a countdown to the baccalauréat:
Sixième (6e) – grade 6
Cinquième (5e) – grade 7
Quatrième (4e) – grade 8
Troisième (5e) – grade 9
The counting continues in the lycée, high school, for the final three years:
Seconde (2nde) – grade 10
Première (1ère) – grade 11
and finally, at the end of the countdown:
Terminale (terminal year) – grade 12
This is when French students pass their leaving exam, the baccalauréat I mentioned in part 1.
Speaking of part 1, do you remember I said school in France is secular? That’s right, just as there is a separation between Church and State, there is a separation between Church and School (which, after all, is run by the state). So unless you send your kids to a private religious school, thew will get a secular education.
This has led to a curious characteristic of the French school system: the Wednesday.
At first, I assume when school ran Mondays through Saturdays, there was no school on Thursdays, so that children could receive the religious education of their family’s choosing. In 1972, the day was moved to Wednesday.
Écoles maternelles and écoles primaires were closed on Wednesdays, and this could extend to Wednesday afternoons in collège. As a result, extracurricular activities are concentrated on Wednesdays too (now supplanting religious education), and parents who work at 80% frequently have their Wednesdays off.
A few years ago, however, the government decided to rebalance school hours and open schools on Wednesday mornings to allow for shorter afternoon classes on the other days. This resulted in many protests, as the responsibility for after-school daycare is the responsibility of municipalities, which were not necessarily of the same political color as the government.
In the end, the government backtracked and allowed each département to choose whether to open schools on Wednesday mornings or not. Welcome to France.
School has just started again after its traditional two-months summer break, and what better time to look at the French school system?
Let’s start with a quick historic fact:
In 1882, Education Minister Jules Ferry made school compulsory and free (and secular). Primary education became compulsory for both boys and girls from age six to age thirteen. Schools weren’t mixed, and girls studied different subjects from boys.
The duration of compulsory education was extended gradually, the most recent being in 2016. It is now from age three to age sixteen.
At age three, French children enter the school system via the école maternelle, literally maternity school. The three years they spend there are called Petite Section (PS), Moyenne Section (MS) and Grande Section (GS), respectively, small, middle and big section.
At age six, they enter primary school, l’école primaire. The five years they spend there are called:
cours préparartoire (CP) – preliminary course = grade 1
cours élementaire 1 (CE1) – elementary course 1 = grade 2
cours élementaire 2 (CE2) – elementary course 2 = grade 3
cours moyen 1 (CM1) – medium course 1 = grade 4
cours moyen 2 (CM2) – medium course 2 = grade 5
These names might sound confusing, but you have to remember that they stem from the old system where children either continued for two more years in the compulsory education (until age 13) which explains the naming of “medium” course. Boys could continue towards higher studies, first the prestigious baccalauréat and then university.
Today, the baccalauréat, or bac for short, is the French high school leaving certificate. But more on that next time.
The hermine, a white weasel, is represented in heraldry by its fur. It is one of the historic symbols of Brittany. Legend has it that Anne de Bretagne, during a hunt, cornered a hermine. The animal had to choose between certain death or getting soiled on a swampy path, and it chose death. Anne de Bretagne was impressed by its attitude and let it live. The hermine became the emblem of Brittany for its courage and gave birth to the motto “Potius mori quam fœdari”, Rather Die than the Stain.
At the royal palace of Amboise, when Anne resided with her husbands King Charles VII and King Louis XII (see the explanation here), the columns in the council hall bear the fleur-de-lys of France and the hermine of Brittany.
The hermine can also be found in the Gwenn ha du, the Breton flag. It consists of black and white stripes and the corner of black hermine son a white background. Gwenn ha Du means “Black and White” in Breton.
The Gwenn ha Du floats on Brittany town halls